Around the Susquehanna Valley, a clear trend has developed in the wedding industry. Today’s brides and grooms are opting for unique touches - whimsical, handcrafted, or vintage - to add to the overall look and feel of their big day. Here, five local professionals who specialize in unique wedding rentals share their stories.
HANDCRAFTED WITH LOVE
Neil Barnes: Barnes Handcrafted Farmhouse Tables
In the summer of 2012, Neil Barnes asked his girlfriend to marry him. Months later, while looking at wedding venues, the bride-to-be asked her new fiancé a question of her own.
“She asked, ‘Can you build me a farmhouse table?’” he recalls. “I was a bit stunned, but I said I’d try.”
His fiancée didn’t want ordinary, round banquet tables at their wedding; she wanted something unique and memorable. So, Barnes, an elementary teacher by day, became a woodworker at night.
“Woodworking was always a little bit in my blood, at least the enjoyment of it,” he says, talking about his master craftsman grandfather, who would make everything from clocks to furniture. “I believe I have a creative gene to do it.”
Barnes grew up on a farm in York County, so he was familiar with a barn’s forty-five degree angle. Using the angle as his template, he began researching, sketching designs and gathering reclaimed barn wood full of knots and grains to add character. The result was a table that was both strong and beautiful. His fiancée then asked him to make fifteen more before their wedding.
After he had finished, Barnes decided to rent out the handmade tables online, hoping to perhaps recoup some of the money he had spent. But from there, he says things really took off.
“We ended up renting out tables for weddings before our own,” he says. “I did thirty weddings in the first year. Now, this year, I’m doing around one hundred.”
Now Barnes, thirty-nine, spends weekends carting tables from New York to Virginia. He says that brides love that he sets up the tables himself. Meanwhile, he continues to build: he’s now amassed fifty tables and matching benches, and is dabbling in the chair rental business as well.
“Every wedding I do is like another layer of love and experience on these tables, then you get to pass it on to someone else,” he says. “I think that’s a wonderful karma to have on your tables. They’re not just mass produced in a factory; I think it’s very special in that fact.”
Barnes Handcrafted Farmhouse Tables, York | www.barneshandcraftedfarmhousetables.yolasite.com
CONNECTING TO THE PAST
Olysa Troop: On a Lark
Olysa Troop always had an interest in things of the past and the stories they told. So when it came time to get married, Troop knew she wanted to incorporate vintage-style vignettes into her wedding.
“I think adding these sorts of elements, even if you just use a few vintage items as a tabletop decoration by a guest book, helps draw people in, feel connected to decor and design,” she says. “They can be conversation pieces, especially for grandparents, aunts and uncles who have used some of these pieces.”
With an initial guest list topping over two hundred people, Troop and her fiancé began planning their laid back, carnival-themed affair, to be held at Duke Farm in Fawn Grove. They crafted pompom garlands, giant cutouts for picture-taking fun, and even games, like a basket toss.
But after the wedding, Troop was saddled with not only props and decorative elements, but also extra drop leaf tables, armchairs, and a sofa that wouldn’t fit in the couple’s home. After renting out a storage facility for a bit, Troop found a shared creative space in Glen Rock to house her wares. By spring 2013, she was renting out pieces to brides all over the Susquehanna Valley. She most recently set up shop at the Redeux Marketplace in downtown York.
“This past year was our first real wedding season,” she says. “We had five weddings, did two photo shoots and some other events.”
To amass a large inventory, thirty-year-old Troop scours estate sales and peruses Craigslist. All of On A Lark’s pieces, from upholstered seating and mismatched wooden chairs to suitcases, trunks, and side tables are vintage or heirloom.
“I think it has a lot more character than just a regular plastic table covered in a linen,” she says. “It all has a story and I think that’s something that resonates with everybody.”
In addition to a la carte vintage rentals, Troop offers various packages that include design, set-up, and styling services.
“We come in and make it look awesome, just the way you pictured, without you having to do a thing,” she says. “It’s nice to be a part of a special moment in somebody’s life, to make it as they hoped.”
On a Lark, York | www.onalark.com
FLORAL EXPERT TURNED DECOR DIVA
April Lutter: The Kept Nest
Though she went to graduate school for education, April Lutter says her heart has always been in the wedding industry. For years, Lutter worked as a floral designer for events. And after taking time off to have her daughter, Lutter returned to floral to open up her own shop.
“I like the opportunity to work with the brides at this magical time in their lives, and being able to bring them a sense of calm and peace,” says Lutter. “I love exceeding the brides’ expectations and giving them the ability to enjoy the planning process.”
Three years ago, Lutter saw the potential for a corollary business venture: a vintage rental company based out of Jefferson, PA. The idea came as she began to plan her own wedding. Her vision of a small wedding, centered on a long table lined with mismatched bottles, was made more difficult as she found there were no local rental companies for vintage decor.
“Since I was already in the wedding industry, and I’ve been collecting antiques since I was twenty-five, it was a no-brainer,” she says.
Lutter began by buying couches and decorative pieces. She then started collecting items like brass candlesticks, old wooden boxes, chandeliers, and mercury glass accents. One of her favorite items, a lemonade stand built by her husband, is often used by brides as a sweets or beverage bar.
“I think it’s fun and bright, and it’s not something you see everywhere,” she says. “There’s something fun about seeing a piece like that at a wedding. It’s unexpected.”
Lutter, forty-one, says the flexible hours running her own rental and floral business have allowed her to spend quality time with her nine-year-old daughter and still teach preschool part-time. But she says she’s constantly scouting for new items to freshen up her inventory, and keeping her eye on trends that her brides will love.
“It’s been about building a good rapport with my brides. I’m super reliable. It’s a role that requires me to be on my game,” she says. “It’s what I love to do, and it’s what I can confidently say that I’m good at. It’s nice at this point in my life to have found that.”
The Kept Nest, Jefferson, PA | www.thekeptnest.com
VINTAGE RESCUE, ENDLESS CREATIVITY
Kristy Sholes: Lovebirds Vintage Rentals
Longtime antique collector Kristy Sholes had never heard of a vintage-style wedding. But she nevertheless agreed to help her niece plan hers in 2011. Sholes hunted for rustic kitchen and farm tables, which could hold gifts. She piled discarded white picket fencing from her neighbor’s yard into her van; broken fencing would be used for the altar space. An old manual typewriter would be converted into a program display, with old suitcases to hold gift cards. Sholes even created a cake stand out of a wrought iron plant stand found at a thrift store, hacking it apart with a saw and draping it with antique crystals.
“That is, still to this day, one of my best renting pieces,” she says “It’s probably been out to twenty- five different weddings.”
After her niece’s wedding, friends asked to borrow pieces. Soon, Sholes realized she had a treasure chest sitting in her basement: In February 2012 she put up website, and within a month customers were flocking to her basement to pick out items. Dozens of weddings later, Sholes found herself renting out a bigger space, a 2,500-square foot shop in Lititz packed full with her coveted antique items.
“Most of the stuff I rescue. I’ll literally pull over to the side of the road if I see an interesting barn and ask the owner, ‘Hey, can I root through your barn?’” she laughs. “Honestly, I love the creativity of it. I always have a million ideas in my head, and, really, this is the perfect outlet for me.”
But Lovebirds Vintage Rentals is also a family affair, with Sholes’s dad as handyman, niece and nephew delivering orders and even her high school-age daughter pitching in as well. Several years after she began, Sholes, forty-four, has rented to over two hundred weddings, with more booked for 2015.
Lovebirds Vintage Rentals, Lititz | www.lovebirdsvintagerentalsofpa.com
DESIGN DUO
Rachel Kegerise and Pam Myers: Swoon Vintage Rentals
Before she was engaged, Rachel Kegerise and her mom, Pam Myers, were already planning the wedding. Mismatched china purchases turned into a collection of Mason jars and an assortment of lounge pieces. Kegerise’s vintage-inspired barn wedding was a hit, even years before the trend; but after the wedding, she wasn’t ready to part with her purchases.
“It took us years upon years, hours upon hours to create this wedding. It’s not something that you can just walk into an antique store and pick things off the shelf,” she says. “That’s where Swoon came about. We wanted to have a cost effective way for brides to get the look that they want.”
So mother and daughter went into business for themselves, with their first rental of the mismatched china, hand-delivered on a family trip to Lancaster, in 2010. By winter of that year, Kegerise was revamping the website, posting clearer pictures, itemizing inventory, and adding more graphics.
“Sometimes I think people see the pieces, but they don’t see how they translate into a wedding piece. They might see a dresser, but we added a picture of it being used at someone’s wedding,” she says. “It just transformed the piece completely.”
The mother-and-daughter duo work out of a pole barn on Myers’s property in Hummelstown. For years they have been “fighting” with Kegerise’s father to get space in the barn for all of the girly items.
“I think for us, it’s an excuse to keep acquiring unique things,” she admits. “We’re really set up for people who have the ideas, or maybe have found a certain look, but don't know how to find those items.”
Kegerise, thirty, and her mother, fifty-eight, love that their hobby turned into something much bigger: A business where both mother and daughter can share their creative talents, helping brides to have weddings that are unique, yet affordable.
“When brides come in and are in awe of different items, that’s when we start getting excited. We love seeing the pictures [of] what brides have done with the pieces,” says Kegerise. “That’s the root of this business. It’s not something we have to do. It’s something that we enjoy.”
Swwon Vintage Rentals, Hummelstown | www.swoonvintagerental.com
